So we as taxpayers are being asked to “loan” the govt $700,000,000,000.00 (damn what a lot of zeros) so the govt can buy a bunch of bad loans from the banks that loaned to people that couldn’t pay the loan back. How many of us out here can afford to take on a high risk loan right now? Seriously, this is a high risk venture. This “fix” is more of the same type of mentality that got us into this trouble. The root cause is bad loan practices, period. Regardless of who is at fault the loan practices are bad. It was bad that someone went to a bank and borrowed more money than they could pay back. It was bad that the bank lent them the money knowing these people couldn’t pay it back. Until the lending institutions change how they do business, we should not buy any of these loans. The behavior has to be corrected. We have as a society become so dependant on credit that so many of us can’t get by without it. We carry insane amounts of credit card debt, car loan debt, etc. that we don’t know how to be fiscally conservative. We don’t know how to save money up to buy the things we want. We have a buy now, pray later attitude. Well it looks like we’re at the pray part, and look who we’re praying to. The government. We are praying to the government to fix this?? Come on, seriously? Doesn’t that seem a bit odd? This rant doesn’t even touch on the fact that we are socializing a certain portion of our “free market” society. That’s for a different discussion. I have yet to be convinced that we are “fixing” any of this. We’re giving an iron lung to a chain smoker without taking away the cigarettes. That isn’t fixing it folks.
October 2, 2008
October 2, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Very well put. Great minds think alike. I can ditto your entire message.
Who ever broke a heroin addiction by shootiing up more heroin?
October 2, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Was beginning to wonder where you were on all of this.
I think the alternatives we have at this point are bad, worse, and worst…take your pick.
The fed has already let loose a few hundred billion to free credit and cash back up for some banks. But that’s a band-aid fix if I ever saw one.
Bottom line…the economic future, as far as I can see… is going to suck regardless of who gets in office, what plan we eventually follow for Wall Street, or how much Americans whine.
Across the board, Americans are going to have to take an axe to their spending and get self-sufficient.
What scares me is that the nation will slide into socialism out of fear of starvation.
The only slim hope I can see is that the same people who didn’t see this coming, are the ones now saying a depression is on its way. And their track record on economic predictions gives me hope that they might be wrong.
That and the American people actually stood up the other day and at a rate of 9 to 1 told their congressmen NOT to vote for the bailout. MAYBE the dialogue this nation has been missing has FINALLY begun.
God help us. He’s the only one who can.
October 2, 2008 at 4:10 pm
We didnt get into this situation overnight, and we arent getting out overnight. Why is Congress so willing to jump into a situation so similar to what its trying to alleviate? A 700 Billion dollar loan to banks, with money we dont have, so we have to borrow it to loan it back out…..Who came up with THIS idea??
The Bigwigs on Wall St are all clucking about the sky falling, and the Congress (by and large) are believing them. We are going to rescue the companies who failed because of their greed, instead of rewarding the companies who didnt by throwing them a bone.
How about that for an idea? All the financial institutions that maintained their senses actually get a perk from the govt so they can continue their positive lending practices? All those who didnt get sold in a fire sale.